Tag Archive: Elearning


OPEN EDUCATION: MARKING MOOCS

Filed under: Music — 6 Comments
May 5, 2013
Robo-teacher

“Shouldn’t there be a dot on that ‘i’?” – Can machines help humans mark MOOCs?

The issue of how a mark MOOCs is a moot point at the moment.

As Europeans race to play catch up with their U.S. counterparts, (no educational body left behind!?), two glaring questions rise to the fore in many articles about these massive open online courses.

These are:

  • How do institutions make money from them?
  • Will MOOC students be able to gain credits for offline courses?

The answer to both these questions, in my view, ultimately rests on how the courses are evaluated. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

PERSONAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS : ONLY CONNECT

Filed under: Blogging — 6 Comments
April 15, 2013

OPEN EDUCATION :  REFLECTIONS ON LEARNING NETWORKS

"I never teach my pupils: I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn" - Albert Einstein.
My Wordle for Personal Learning Networks

Wordle for Personal Learning Networks

One of the effects of the abundance of online learning resources is the trend of coming up with new terms to define what we mean by education and even to question what its purpose is.

There are still relics of the Dickensian notion that students are vessels to be filled facts but, thankfully, this is a pedagogy that by and large belongs to the past.

Yet, although we like to think we live in a more enlightened age, the rapid nature of the change over the past two decades continues to be hard to assimilate.

Openness implies accessibility and an accommodating attitude so, all things being equal, these should be good times for teachers and students, life-long or otherwise.

So why do I feel so much doubt and uncertainty? Shouldn’t my mood be more celebratory? Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

OPEN EDUCATION : PUNKS vs THE X-FACTOR

Filed under: Blogging — 12 Comments
April 14, 2013

LEARNER EXPERIENCE IN MOOCS

Coursera+DS106

This is my assignment for activity 14 of the Open University’s ‘Open Education (#h817open) course  in which I look at how MOOCS have been defined and  compare the Direct Storytelling courses (ds106) with those provided by Coursera.

DEFINING MOOCS

The MOOC acronym was coined in 2007 by David Cormier and Bryan Alexander to describe the University of Manitoba course ‘Connectivism and Connective Knowledge’. This attracted less than 3,000 students so was, by some degree, less massive than more recent online courses.

Some have argued that the monolithic nature of MOOCs now depersonalises them to the point that they can only pay lip service to the principle of ‘connectivity’ and makes the use of the adjective ‘open’  a bone of contention.

An example of the backlash can be found in Reclaim Open Learning, a network which prefers to talk in terms of “small pieces, loosely joined’ rather than an unwieldy and impenetrable mass of resources.

Continue reading →
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE SINCE WE LAST MET?

Filed under: Humour — Leave a comment
March 28, 2013

Yesterday, I spent more time than was probably merited on thinking up questions to get students of a new course engaged in the idea that learning is about more than simply attending my lessons.

On reflection, I should have just written up the questionnaire compiled by Gardner Campbell, a professor at Virginia Tech:

Screen shot 2013-02-09 at 18.49.07

This image is a screen capture from Gardner Campbell’s highly recommended talk ‘Ecologies of Yearning’ which was one of the resources on the e-learning & digital cultures MOOC.

Tags: , , , ,
Comment

LEARNING OBJECTS – HUMAN SUBJECTS

Filed under: Music — 2 Comments
March 22, 2013

Robots are not teachers and teachers are not robots

Week 2 – H817, ‘Openness and innovation in e-learning’ – Some brief reflections on learning objects.

We have the tools to make learning objects but we should not objectify the teaching process. We are, after all, dealing with human subjects i.e. students, pupils, learners, and therefore need to get personal too.

In the planning of my two current advanced level English as a foreign language courses I have been influenced by my recent experience with MOOCs. This has convinced me that technology only works in the classroom when it consolidates what I actually teach. In other words the machines serve the humans rather than vice versa.

My groups are not large and these are not officially blended courses. Initially, I’m experimenting with basics by sending a weekly e-mail to all participants as a follow up to each lesson. This forces me to look critically at the objects for each lesson but, perhaps more importantly, it means I have to outline my own objectives. If these are not clear to me, how can I hope them to be clear to the learners. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment